Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research

Awards are important; they are public statements of our aspirations. Helen Keller Laureates provide invaluable examples of roads well traveled, inspiring promising new researchers to choose their own paths more wisely. Therefore, the Foundation considers the Helen Keller Prize Program to be among its most important efforts to end blindness.

The Foundation Board believes that vision research will advance in direct proportion to the public’s awareness and understanding of research on eye disease and injury. With the establishment of the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research in May 1994, the Foundation dramatically began its efforts to promote public recognition of vision research.

The Helen Keller Prize has been embraced by the vision research community, a veritable army of 20,000 scientists and clinicians worldwide who labor to preserve the precious gift of sight for present and future generations. The Foundation believes that the Helen Keller Prize will ultimately become a powerful public symbol of their efforts.

Helen Keller Laureates are selected by an international panel of biomedical researchers and physicians. The Prize ceremony occurs at the annual convention of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), an international conclave that attracts more than 13,000 scientists and physicians from over 80 countries. Keller Johnson-Thompson, great-grand niece of Helen Keller, awards the Prize to the Laureate.

In 2015, BrightFocus Foundation, which advances outstanding research and public information on vision disease, joined the Helen Keller Foundation as a partner in presenting the Prize.

2018 Helen Keller Laureates
By the 1970’s, oncogenes had been identified as genes that cause or predispose to human cancer by being activated or inappropriately turned on. In the early to mid 1980’s, teams led by ophthalmologists Ted Dryja, Brenda Gallie and Linn Murphree along with basic scientists, primarily Web Cavenee, successfully mapped (read more)

CO-CHAIR
Nicholas A. Delamere, Ph.D.Professor and Head, Department of Physiology
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Past President, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

CO-CHAIR
Joe G. Hollyfield, Ph.D.Llura and Gordon Gund Professor of Ophthalmology Research
Cole Eye Institute
Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Past President, International Society for Eye Research
Past President, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

Committee Members

J. Bronwyn Bateman, M.D.Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology
David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California, USA
Founding Director, Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute
Former Chair, Department of Ophthalmology
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Past President, Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology
Past President, Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology

Emily Y. Chew, M.D., 2014 Helen Keller LaureateDeputy of Division of Epidemiology and Clinical ApplicationsChief of Clinical Trials BranchNational Eye Institute/National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Past President, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

Joel S. Schuman, M.D., FACSDirectorNew York University Langone Eye CenterProfessor and Chairman of OphthalmologyNew York University Langone Health
New York University School of MedicineProfessor of Neural Science, Center for Neural Science
New York UniversityProfessor of Biomedical, Electrical and Computer EngineeringNew York University Tandon School of EngineeringProfessor of Neuroscience and PhysiologyNew York University Neuroscience Institute
New York, New York, USA